The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #23468   Message #261067
Posted By: GUEST,Bruce O.
19-Jul-00 - 05:46 PM
Thread Name: Origins: The Bold Benjamin
Subject: RE: The Bold Benjamin
That's the Douce collection copy. I noted under sources in my broadside ballad index that Wood, Rawlinson and Douce (17th century ones) collection ballads could be found on the Bodley Ballads website, but didn't repeat that for each ballad in these collections.

The unbared traditional tune for "The Bold Benjamin" in JFSS #11, 1907 (that regularized in 'The Penguin Book..') is coded in the file COMBCOD2 on my website, and I can't find any known broadside ballad tune of the 17th century to match it. Anne Geddes Gilchrist in JFSS #11 suggested that the tune may have been adapted from the Admiral Benbow one that starts "Oh, we sailed to Virginia", also used for "A Virgin Unspotted".